Ways Students Commit Academic Dishonesty

According to the Institutional Rules on Student Services and Activities, academic dishonesty includes, but is not limited to, cheating, plagiarism, collusion, unauthorized collaboration, falsifying academic records, and misrepresentation of facts. Some of the ways that students engage in dishonest behavior are shown below. This list was compiled with the assistance of students interested in helping faculty members confront such behavior more effectively.

Some students may commit academic dishonesty by:

• Engaging in unauthorized collaboration with another student on an assignment for credit;
• Submitting plagiarized materials obtained from the Internet and/or other sources for credit;
• Coughing and or using hand signals during a test;
• Concealing notes on hands or in caps, shoes, or pockets;
• Writing in blue books prior to an examination;
• Writing information on blackboards or desks or keeping notes on the floor;
• Obtaining copies of a test in advance, e.g., during an earlier exam period offered by the faculty member;
• Passing information from an earlier class to a later class;
• Leaving information in the restroom;
• Exchanging exams after they have been distributed so that neighbors have identical test forms;
• Having a substitute take a test and providing falsified or other identification for the substitute;
• Fabricating data for lab assignments;
• Changing a graded paper and requesting that it be regraded;
• Failing to turn in a test and later suggesting the faculty member has lost it;
• Stealing another student's graded test and writing one's own name on it;
• Submitting computer programs written by another person;
• Recording two answers one on the test form one on the answer sheet;
• Marking an answer sheet to enable another student to see the answer;
• Encircling two adjacent answers and claiming to have provided the correct answer;
• Stealing an exam for someone in another section or for placement in a test file;
• Using a programmable calculator to store test information;
• Taking another student's computer assignment printout from a computer lab;
• Transferring a computer file from one person's account to another;
• Transmitting posted answers for an exam to a student in a testing area via cell phone or other electronic device;
• Destroying or removing library materials to gain an academic advantage.